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Using the Social Media to Drive Ideas

By Kevin M


Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Digg, Stumbleupon. When we think of the social media, we often think of it as mostly a toy to be used to connect with others and to entertain ourselves, or as a place to peddle income producing wares. But what about using it to drive ideas that are important to us, even if they won’t win us any friends or earn us any money?

For the same reasons the social media is effective in enabling people to connect with others or sell products and services, it’s also an outstanding venue in which to promote ideas. What kind of ideas? How about politics, faith, health, environmental concerns, legal issues, public debates—you name it. If you can tweet, text or blog about your social and private lives, you can do the same about issues with wide public appeal.

The mainstream media have conditioned us to assume that all the great ideas will come from the appropriate “they” or “somebody”—as in “they” should do this, and “someone” should do something about that. The social media has opened up the field, and now WE can participate in the formation and promotion of ideas.


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TweetDeck vs. Hootsuite – Which Do You Like Better?

By Kevin M

Using a tool to control the flow on the social media

One of the things that can make the social media seem a bit intimidating is the constant flow of messages. How do you get a handle on a flood tide of information, and channel it into a more limited form that will be of practical use? Or more specifically, how do you separate the relevant from the clutter? Doing it manually is beyond comprehension, but fortunately, we’re not without options.

To streamline Twitter or any other social media, there are applications that will simplify the process by separating and organizing incoming messages, as well as enable you to categorize your own messages. And best of all, you can get them for free.

A social media tool can make networking much easier. Hootsuite and TweetDeck are two of the most popular. I have both and use each at different times.

What I’ll describe here will pertain mostly to Twitter, since I’ve chosen to concentrate my efforts on one social media at a time. Both tools can work with multiple social media, including Facebook.


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You Are What You Tweet on Twitter

By Kevin M

Last week in What Twitter Can Do For You we discussed how Twitter can be used to generate activity, connections and traffic, as well as enable you to get your ideas out into the world.

Obviously, the more followers you have, the larger the potential market for your messages, or tweets. But equally important is the quality of your tweets. After all once you have a few followers, or a few thousand, the next critical step is generating a stream of tweets that will engage them enough to take the next step, either by responding to your message on the social media itself, or by clicking through to your site.

Despite the thousands of claims of expert status that populate Twitter, the fact that the network is just a few years old and in a constant state of evolution means that there are far more practitioners than experts. With that in mind, I humbly lay claim to the status of practitioner and disclose that I can’t make any guarantees as to your success.


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What Twitter Can Do For You

By Kevin M

Twitter can seem daunting at times. It’s the preverbal “fire hose of information” coming at you so fast it’s almost incomprehensible–the information superhighway of the information superhighway. To the outside observer, it can seem as if there’s no logical purpose to it, as if everyone is sending out information that no one else is reading.

To a very large degree, that’s even true—but it doesn’t mean that Twitter doesn’t work, or that it won’t work for you. True, not nearly everyone will even pay attention to most of your messages, but you don’t need everyone—you just need a few at a time. Multiply that small response by several efforts each day and you’re beginning to talk about something significant.

The best way I can describe what Twitter can do for you is to tell you what it’s doing for me.


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How Did You Get So Many Followers on Twitter?

By Kevin M

With nearly 8,000 followers on Twitter, this is a question I’m getting pretty regularly these days. Most people assume I’ve signed up with an automated follower system, which isn’t remotely true. No, it’s just a regular routine—what’s now a habit—applied consistently over a period of several months.

Last year, I signed up with Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In and a few other social networks. I know all of the success guru’s say to get set up on all the various networks and start making friends and followers, but it’s equally true if you’re going to do any one of them well, it’ll take time and effort. So rather than spreading myself thin, I decided to pick just one and hit it hard.

After some weighing of options, I chose Twitter as the network to make my start.


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